Watermelon Fast

Lines on Eliot

2006-09-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

Stand betwixt the ocean split from Massachusetts to England
Hear the self-sustaining symphony of sea walls and know
By the warmth of the stationary wave, the tempature of blood
The brine mist in the air, the exact salinity of amniotic fluid.

Your primrose path laid in muck unseen by sun or man
Sometime before you drown in the collapse and suspension
Along the fossils and relics coursing happily
Parting a weak rivulet, and here and there, walking on a pudlle.

Untitled

2006-05-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

A pink-bellied lisp
Leaks from elderberry lips
In viscous drips
Like syrupy nipples.

Echelons of geese dart
And honk against clouds
Of fleece gravitating
In self-fulfilling triangles,
Gliding in sleep on wings
Of telepathy and pillows
Of cumuli.

Baghdad Tomorrow Morning

2006-05-18T17:13:00.000-07:00

The sky is changing color over Baghdad tomorrow morning, tonight in New York.
It’s not the Berlin Wall but loquacious anchors and quieter ex-generals
Sit around the live feed chewing each others’ asses just the same.
The people, their hopes long oppressed and off-camera, throw a noose
Around the bronze neck and take turns hacking the dado with a single sledgehammer.
It took the Soviets seventeen hours to bring down Lenin, someone non sequiturs.
Then an American soldier wipes the face of Saddam with an American Flag,
Cleaning mustard from the corner of his mouth, but then thinks better of it
As if he can hear the commentator’s disapproval from the shoulder of the dictator
Who the Lebanese press purports has taken refuge in the Russian Embassy.
The tank with a crane-like winch apparatus seemingly designed for statue dismantling
Hugely symbolic. I don’t want anyone talking when it happens in real time on the screen.
So that’s what they mean by regime targets? I put in a tape of women’s wrestling.
Good strong Eastern European chicks.

First Sunday of Advent

2006-05-08T14:56:00.000-07:00

Angels dance about the altar
In robes of purple gauze.
They soften haunted gazes
With the better, best intentions of saints.
They caress to bless their music
Less our lesser-hewn prayers
Rounding harsh, harshest sounds
Like the neat seams of sails
Smoothed, smothered with their airs.

They calm the frantic eye,
Balm the burning ear.

Freezing in the silence
Icy impatient dark, we rest
Lulled warmly in their home.
Our nausea made taut, electric
Anxiety slicing like razors
Grounded by the antidote of perfect
Knowledge. At last we go in peace
Grateful of such a liberal parish.

Farewell Melville

2006-04-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

There has died and been buried in this city,
During the current week and at an advanced age,
A man who is so little known, even by name,
To the generation now in the vigour of life
That only one newspaper contained his obituary,
And this was but of three or four lines.

Introduction

2006-04-07T13:47:00.000-07:00

Faithful like thick curtains
Nurturing ancient moths
Lethargic in the dark, not dead.
These slime pamphlets sneak
Into me as easily as the smoke
Of a venomous halo, the fog
Which clogs dreams choking
On explosive pollen. Surely
Shaking out this fine filth,
Waking the sleepy wings
Arousing toxic galaxies
Of wasted dust hovering
As if between wind and wind
Machines, is playing with fire
Spilt from the blazes of gold
Flowers lining the way in flaming
Geysers erupting in the dark nesses
Where the ashes of these poems
Envelop the clean parks of sleep.

2006-04-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

Kissing Lolita at the Apocalypse

2006-04-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

Emergency skin prickles at the hem into
Strawberry cream but her lips taste of warm
Milk. Unspooled hair spills in the thick air
Between us the white cotton shirt furls
Around fond breasts. . .

Beyond this threshold where our vacant movements
Fade in the shallow glow only her body knows
Round amid wild grass, far from the fruit tree sunk
Deep in a wood forgotten she lies, her flesh
Tender for now, swallowed by none, soon bound
(A wilted bruise sweet as marrow) by no one
Save swollen time with thick hair and bright teeth.

Ode to a Poison Mushroom

2006-03-28T15:25:00.000-08:00

Moist and supple as a baby's lung, crushable
Like marzipan, courageous in comfortable
Spurts of nothing but air and dirt and water
Sculpted to nurse, inflated with cunning
To kill. Is your death contagious in a kiss
Lingering on your gently gilled cap?

Once again I will swallow whole the fleshy pad,
The fibrous tendon, and savor the smear of soil
Where you rooted to the soft earth like a happy tumor,
As delicate as a dance with wet feet
Smeeling of sweet wax and peat.

May I praise a fungus as a fruit of dark
Nooks, a shadow harvested crop, a thumb-like
Fugitive disguised among my toes?

Plane Crash

2006-03-23T15:55:00.000-08:00

When the sky rejects a silver jet I
Always cringe at the mindless massiveness
Of the event. Engineered gear, daring
To even suggest design on sheer space
Shattering across the lashing atmosphere.
Accumulated passiveness, like small fruits
Dashed in a single spasm of thought
Caught between a moment of fire
And a gaping blue smear of frantic
Velocity tangled by prayer-prohibiting
Terror in a manic and final rush of air.
A graceless descent a lifetime long,
A scattering of luggage amongst the calm.

A Certain Amount of Detachment

2006-03-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

Excuse me; I’m a little confused
I was just thinking about you.
My coordination has deteriorated and
I’ve grown clumsy.
After a long time
Things change.
Upon arrival I learned that this journey is a homecoming
From a pilgrimage so arduous
I’ve forgotten my time at the holy place.
I sought asylum in temples and wherever else
Music is made.
Since I returned I’ve noticed a change
In this country’s incredible weather,
And also, the time passing in parcels
Of eight and twelve hours.
I sense my limitations and realize
They’ve always been with me
And will always be fateful and honest.
A certain amount of detachment
Accompanies this experience
Which is never as dangerous
As the more common medicines
I administer in cases of anxiety and despair.
All this is to say, I am becoming
Accustomed to developments both
Within and without my powers of control
However uncertain it seems.

Robinson Crusoe

2006-03-16T16:42:00.000-08:00

For me to do wrong,
Never knowing right,
Was no great thing.

Awareness in shadow,
Negative
And nothing, I don't think, I haven't seen before.

Too late for me too wait
For I was resolved
To have my liberty.

I doubt if it is mine
Like an x-ray
In the dark.

A radical search for the rock bottom

2006-03-16T16:40:00.000-08:00

A radical search for the rock bottom,
A downward turn and hard on the rudder.
Irreversible descent into the patchwork earth.

But below, along the street where all is quiet
As a cop shines a light on a dark doorway
We step out into the night like rock stars.

We walk along in playful anonymity
Towards the park where we can stop
Laughing long enough to light a cigarette.

A passing cab, one of a million, can
Shuttle us off to waypoints and safe
Houses we know among the galaxies.

We're passing an imaginary restaurant
Our reflection before cheerful diners
Clinking glasses and testing the heft

Of silverware and maybe, just perhaps
Mistaking a couple damaged narcissists
For an avant-garde personality.

Nonetheless

2006-03-15T08:35:00.000-08:00

"We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine." H.L. Mencken

Sheathed in the meanings of time
As it is slowly woven and keeps
Happening and leaving its shadows
Behind which he hides half awake
As if perplexed and dreads sleep
As if afraid of conscious moments
Between consequence and drinks
Hinted at by sex in the whispering
Cloth of the quiet and complex
Under oaths broken in confusion
Left unspoken by the slurred voices
Misheard in the soft discussion
Among one's accent and impediment.

Dream 9/14/04

2006-03-15T08:15:00.000-08:00

I dreamt I saw John Lennon in Fenway Park,
A place I've never been and a man I never knew

Discontentedly, like myself

2006-03-14T11:34:00.000-08:00

Discontentedly, like myself
Slipshod soul in the hole
Since I made that wrong turn
Hope with the money’s all gone.

Despondency in the clown skin
Mistrustful, tired eyes
Mistrustful of the love, of the drugs
Lost faith in the glisten of wet lips.

Dissatisfied with surrogates
Rotten habit of days
Restless sleep without the comfort
Of a careless hand in the dark.

Anachronism

2006-03-13T08:48:00.000-08:00

We promenade the Village on this afternoon spread
Before us like an ignorant carpet, arbiters of shoes and toes
In a park of democracy, spying on the blonde's paperback,
Fitzgerald or foe?

Talking of walking a dog on wheels through a delicious dusk
Reveling in the succourance of curbs and cobbles sea-worn
Invincible as we make our review with the condescension
Of dowagers.

This net of streets unravels us, freeing the dolphins into the sky.
We are flung forward and fished up into the burnished air
Of a hanging day in the limbo of April suspended between
Sun and awning.

Subsequence 2

2006-03-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

A trip back and forth in time
under a navy blue sky, a rendezvous
or interception synchronized
by messengers ignorant of their message.
The grand scheme changing hands
sight unseen like the recovery of forgotten
possessions, lost mnemonic devices
connected to nothing in the past.
Anniversaries of things that never
occurred and I remember remembering
but am less than sure if I was there.

2006-03-01T11:36:00.000-08:00

Between the pillars of every morning

2006-02-27T11:38:00.000-08:00

Between the pillars of every morning
I slip into the cold with only the street to cross.
The elaborate pleasure is masked
By a whiff of lighter fluid or diesel exhaust
But this doesn’t interfere with the dangerous
Plans in my brain.

2006-02-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

2006-02-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

Parenthetical Times

2006-02-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

We live in parenthetical times with smiles
Assigned to either side of the punchline.

While the airlines sift my gifted brothers
To the Four Corners and I am left adrift
Holding on for life or limb aloft a whale's tail,
Inhabiting the imaginary trajectory
The breathless and final curve to sea
Gray like slate and hard like hitting the sidewalk.

No one's indulging in a laugh on the subway
No one tips his hat in this day. No hats anyway.

We hide hints of little happiness in between
Like foyers and courtyards unseen by those trusted
With blood or circumstance with whom we nurture
Our pristinely white psycho-pharmacologies
Preserving the night drama like perverse lovers
Keeping warm by huddling over a barrel-fire.

So who am I? I aim for a certain obscurity and miss,
I guess, but who knows but those to whom I confess?

Flying highways all the way home, but it's not my home
It's your home and I never felt all that welcome.

Subsequence

2006-01-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

A day lost in travel back and forth from absence
Under a bold blue sky, a rendezvous
And interception synchronized
By couriers ignorant of their message.
The overall scheme transacted
Sight unseen like a retrieval
Of forgotten mnemonic devices
Connected to nothing in the past
On anniversaries of things that never
Occurred which I remember remembering
But cannot be certain I was there.

Idyll In My Coat

2006-01-15T11:39:00.000-08:00

The descriptive satisfaction
Of a quilted inner lining,
Corduroy at the cuff and collar,
Large loose buttons - once one was replaced,
Pockets big enough for my bills
and a book, stamps, my checks, no pen.
Comfort in its large shapelessness
Seduced in the shoulders
with an uphill day’s morning light
Revealing the strung-out routine
and this unstylish reminiscence
Slouching in early hebetude.

2006-01-14T03:34:00.000-08:00

100101

2006-01-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

"There are problems in these times,
But, ooh, none of them are mine." - Lou Reed

I can still remember the taste of her tongue
(The desperation of shapes in exhalation.)
Thickened with syrupy shots of nonsense
(I have seen in secret hundreds intimately.)
And good only for the unserious blatherings
(Try not to lose your faith or your balance.)
Of a slightly average co-ed, brainless and bra-less
(A proxy of concerned circumstance.)
Growing more affectionate with every drink
(Approximately caressed by numbers.)
Exchanging one illusion for another
(Collect and trade them with your friends!)
This disheveled room in a combustible building
(Never leave your apartment again!)
The recurrent phenomenon as hearing grows more acute
(A bachelor pad among the asteroids.)
Affection by numbers (again) and wall numbed
(My heart's in the right place, but I'm not.)
Better brainless than bra-less, a starboard buoy
(And whatever became of Dylan Thomas?)
Cold angel hair and the daily smiles over daily bread
(He might have withdrawn to Galilee.)
What if it makes no difference?
(Leave your gift before the altar and go.)

I asked for a fish and you gave me a snake.
I asked for bread and you gave me stones.

2006-01-03T11:32:00.000-08:00

Riverdale

2005-12-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Before a gate, once opened will spill me into the night
Armed with cigarettes and lighter, shaved and moneyed
Prepared to surrender my will to evening, as happy mediums
Rest their gentle fingers on the séance table like a needle
On a cork floating in a still pond where the smear of moonlight
Silhouettes this thieving party trying to ride our reflection
Into the Kelvin sky, blue beneath the black. The cool light
Of white and shadow portraying our former selves to the future
Inevitably visible to an oxygen rich imagination just now
We will, on the next day in the scratchy morning sun, be cozy
With coffee and the swerving nicotine rush blinking our eyes
At the last weary ghost movements of exposed wire and cold ash
On this bricked day past middle age by the slant of light reflecting
A friendly vampire in this window of a ten-dollar cab ride home.

Continual farewells

2005-12-25T02:50:00.000-08:00

Continual farewells
Like webs of sorrow
In the corners of consciousness
Make it hard to breathe.

Gramercies

2005-12-15T11:35:00.000-08:00

All great men have been forced to entertain themselves
(Angelic hilarity swirled with monastic simplicity)
There are no puritans among them.
(Ineffectual if not sexual, and even then)
They have not the patience to tolerate the ordinary as sufficient
(Garfunkle lays sun burnt reading Rimbaud)
Periscopically they break the surface and take bearing
(On Martinique to my mother fallen from the couch)
Submarines they dive the depths to sound the abyss.
(The writer should always be under or above par)
Here, they risk exposure, treasonous to the tides of mankind
(I don’t have to worry)
There, they flirt with floundering, an abandonment in the dark.
(Mend the oblivion by wearing it)
I salute you as a pagan, just as you ought to be.
(I don’t have to worry about calling you; they turned off my phone)